Hayden Panettiere recalls sexual incident on boat involving older man at 18

Hayden Panettiere has spoken about an alleged incident from her late teens while promoting her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning.

Speaking on the May 11 episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, the 36-year-old actress recalled being “told to perform” sexual acts with an older man after being introduced through someone she trusted.

“The fact that I was 18, even though I’d lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18 … scientifically, your frontal lobes don’t develop until we’re what, 25, 26?” Panettiere said.

“So even though I felt like I could make healthy decisions, safe decisions, I wasn’t capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me.”

Panettiere described the incident as taking place in a “very small room” on a boat while she was starring in Heroes as Claire Bennet.

She said she was allegedly pushed into a room with an “undressed” and “very famous” man by someone she had viewed as “a protector and somebody who had my back”.

“She physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous,” Panettiere said. “That lion in me, that fire in me … my hair stood on end and I became ferocious. I was like, ‘This is not happening.’”

The actress said she left the room and later reflected on the experience as a betrayal of trust. “There was no jumping off and swimming away,” she said. “And there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation.”

Panettiere also spoke about the people she relies on for support, including her father, Skip Panettiere, whom she described as her “safe space”. She added that the experience changed how she evaluates trust in relationships and friendships.